#if you are adult like me and have to deal with the hell that is tax season

[d1sc01nf3rn0]

I'm seeing a lot of people with neurodivergency, specially under the autism spectrum say that "Laios is annoying, never shuts up, is insensitive, and I can't stand him"; and the irony is not lost on me lmao.

[spacegoathours]

@rissynicole @ligbi

alright you two

sometime between miyuki’s death and the conquering of vort I imagine that irkens just made things progressively worse and worse for vortians… taxes included. for no other reason than irkens are assholes.

so lard nar makes a stupid decision but some irken elite come after him for it

(sorry kira I think nar is an…acceptable leader but I don’t know if he can actually kill lol. but they sure are coming after him)

[softest-butch]

i started reading the vampire armand. btw

[autisticcole]

Heheheheheho I have gotten some of the Dragon Age books (🏴‍☠️) and this is gonna really let me dig into some stuff, especially my favorite guy Cole, cause now I can read his OG appearance, I want to see how much stuff Cole says, especially during his quest actually makes sense, and how much is in-universe "both sides are right"ing about not listening to what Cole wants to do.

I am mainly talking about Spirit!Cole thanking Inky for not making him change... Despite the fact that thoughout Cole's quest Solas ignores what Cole wants (Like being binded) & wants to do (Kill the guy who beat beyond beating a 12 (at most) year old (most likely, it isn't outright stated (to my memory) the Templar who fucked up the paperwork was also one of the ones who physically abused him, but I feel it's a pretty safe assumption) & got that child killed due to neglect & faced no consequences) but ultimately the choice that causes Cole to thank the player for not changing him is the one where you listen to Solas over Cole (Or well Varric, who also doesn't let Cole do what he wants but is closer to what Cole would have done if he had went alone for the confrontation) & in this route I would say Cole's character changes a lot more, especially as he forgets the original Cole, which... Rubs me wrong, but I'll save my more detailed thoughts for 1. After I fully read Asunder & 2. Either a full Cole analysis or a detailed post about my thoughts on his quest & routes (& maybe how I'd rewrite them, as a Autistic person & a ally to the aroace community)

Anyways my point is that I want to see how true it is characters rejected or wanted to change Cole, I want to see what leads him to feel that having two men argue & tell him who he is supposed to be & do only to have a third person decide out of those two's options for what he should do is remotely a situation where he's been accepted.

[trekkele]

So Alfred was made responsible for Bruce after his parents' death but what about Leslie Thompkins? I think it says somewhere that she was Bruce's guardian too, but then she just never gets mentioned in correlation to Bruce's parental figures. Maybe Jim Gordon too, though I don't know if that's fanon or not.

Ok so Jim Gordon is pretty much a fanon thing - he’s either new to Gotham when Batman starts out (like in Batman Year One) or he’s new to Gotham when the Wayne’s die and thats one of his first big cases (Gotham TV). I personally like it when he’s the on the Wayne Murder case, because it creates a sort of circle - the cop who failed Bruce working with Batman.

He also has very little connection to Bruce outside of that, more of a family friend, someone Alfred considered a good influence more then anything.

Legally and morally Jims responsibility to Bruce starts and ends with solving the Wayne murder (and being a mandated reporter). He never quite manages that one either does he.

In Leslie Thompkins’s original appearance she played Jim Gordons role of being the only person at the scene to try and comfort Bruce, and was later made into a family friend (colleague of Thomas) who decided to take a parental role in Bruces life after his parents death. That was a personal choice though, and legally she had no responsibility to him, outside of being a doctor and also a mandated reporter.

(I keep specifying ‘legally’ not because i think that is what makes someone significant to a kid, but because that would dictate how much access/power/consideration these people would have in a kids life. Legally neither Leslie or Jim were/are Bruces guardians, that doesnt mean they wouldn’t stick around when they could)

I also keep specifying that they’re mandated reporters because in quiet a few canons, Alfred is not Bruce’s first legal guardian (regardless of what his parents may have/may not have wished/willed). The legal maneuvering around becoming a vulnerable baby billionaires guardian would have been a nightmare, and both Gordon and Thompkins would/could have stuck around for that. Them being a cop and a doctor would have been very useful for Bruce’s safety.

Alfred was also “made responsible”, but the glossing over of what that means and how that would have happened is such a wasted opportunity. I promise the absolute shit show around that custody battle could fuel a million angst fics.

[lecliss]

I think a 10yo just got attached to me in genshin and if this keeps up its gonna make me not wanna play cuz I don't wanna come off as mean if I have to tell her to give me some space, but I wanna play in peace ya know?

[zanzaklausx]

A horrific truth I've learned is that society at large just sort of assumes people go from non-sentient meat clouds, straight into fully realized and well adjusted human adults the moment they turn 18. Many people can't fathom the fact that everything that happened to you as a kid, how you were treated, what you were forced to do or accept, affected who you are and how you developed into who you are now. That you were fully human the entire time, and everything done to you out of "adult convenience" is now a part of you forever.

[ragnars-tooth]

i completely and absolutely hallucinated the last time i read firestar apparently bc i was ten thousand percent sure russ shot beargstrom at the end. i thought that man was so dead. so imagine my surprise rereading tfe properly rn.

(i was already too confused by whos who irt the bears last time anyway so if anything its making me feel LESS stupid that i just misread a paragraph and fucked up the entire plotline for myself <- it will happen again)

consider this a public acknowledgment that it turns out idk what the hell is happening in these books, soz <3 i will continue to lie by accident and make shit up 🥰

[green-mountain-goose]

-

[strikersin]

If my Actual Real Life Father saw this blog I wouldn't even be able to die. I would just live. LOL. At that point I guess we have different things to worry about .

But I can see his confused and perplexuated reaction . Haha. It's actually cute

[running-in-the-dark]

went to bed early and woke up before 8am today! pretty cool. except I woke up with a bad headache and eventually had a very long nap.

I'm just so damn tired! like, no matter how much or how well or when I sleep, I'm still tired all day. so it's just pointless trying to fix my sleep schedule (when I'll just be asleep most of the day anyway).

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

So I’m a minor (16 to be specific) and I frequently watch and read stuff with explicit sexual or 18+ content in it. I live in an extremely conservative Christian household and things like explicit fanfic are pretty much the only option I have for learning about sex that isn’t abstinence only. I do feel bad about it, especially when I see adults online say stuff like “oh i watched lots of inappropriate things as a teen that i really shouldn’t have” and it makes me feel like I’m ruining myself in a way that I won’t realize until I’m an adult? Right now I don’t see what the big deal is but i get the feeling that when i’m 24 or something I’ll wake up one day and be ashamed of this for some reason i’m not mature enough to know yet. Should I just stop and wait until I’m 18 to continue or what?

hi anon,

okay. I'm gonna hit you with something:

turning 18 does not actually change the way you feel about porn or sex or anything. the difference between being seventeen and 364 days and being 18 is nonexistent. there's not a magical switch that changes you as a person; that comes from lived experience. if you're 18 and your experience is still that porn and smut and what have you i something that you should feel bad about, it's still going to feel that way and a birthday won't change that.

look, the whole notion of "I saw [x] that I shouldn't have when I was young" is like. okay. so you saw something that was a little mature for you that you didn't quite get? awesome. did you die? no. most people's hangups about sexuality don't come from seeing a rogue titty when they were a teenager, they come from the culture that person was raised in that made seeing a rogue titty feel like something to be ashamed of instead of a completely natural part of life.

story time! when I teach my 4th-6th grade OWL classes (Our Whole Lives, great human development program) I always start by holding a meeting with the kids' parents. I've been doing this for seven years, and every time without fail some of the parents will recall seeing porn for the first time as a kid. these guys were kids when printed porn magazines were still a thing, so they were discovering them in all kinds of places - the bedrooms of their parents or their friends' parents, at bus stops, in the woods, once even stowed in some farm equipment. and they remember it feeling illicit and exciting, sure, and possibly making them confused or even horny for the first time in their young lives, but like... that's it. none of these people are irreparably damaged by seeing porn. in fact, they've grown up to be the kind of people who go out of their way to make sure their young kids are enrolled in a queer-friendly, body-positive, diversity-embracing sex ed class to counter stereotypes and misinformation they might receive elsewhere.

looking at things that arouse you is morally neutral. it can be a great way to help you learn about what turns you on, and even if it's not the best source of factual, realistic depictions of sex, it can still help you discover things - hell, I only figured out what the clitoris was by reading Young Justice fanfic (shout out Snaibsel).

you can't ruin yourself, at any age, with the media you like to consume. what makes you uncomfortable and anxious is the attitude you've been taught to have about that media, which is something that has to be actively unlearned, because it's certainly not going to just disappear on its own when you become a legal adult.

tl;dr obviously no one is making you watch porn and you shouldn't if it makes you uncomfortable, but if you drop it right now and come back when you're 18 don't expect to feel any different if you haven't done any more unpacking re: the conservative Christianity of it all.

[mr-jack-letterman]

We need more young stan content out here.

And nah I ain't talking about 12 year old Stanley or 30 year old mullet Stan, I'm talking 17 year old, slicked back hair, acne riddled Stan pines.

Yeah that one.

I am so happy mullet Stan is so popular because his fit slaps ngl and the angst is so potent I can't not respect it. But teenage Stan has so much potential it's driving me insane.

There is a line dividing the 17 years of relative happiness Stan had with Ford and the 10+ years of depression and crime he had on the streets, and teenage Stan uses that line as a goddamn jump rope.

Seriously, depending on how you look at it dude is either living his best life or is fighting for said life in the trenches of homelessness and poverty.

I see a lot of content regarding Stan on the streets but it only ever focuses on 30ish Stan in his later years of homelessness where he's already a hardened adult after years of dealing with this bullshit. But Stan didn't just drive away and then magically turn 30. There were times in those first few months after Stan got kicked out where he was in his car, trying to sleep, probably starving, while still being fundamentally a child.

Hell, compared to the 30ish age of mullet Stan and the 60+ year old con man he'd later become, teenage Stan is damn near a baby. There's a certain brightness about him, a sort of warm naive optimism that still clings to him because he's straight up just too young to know any better.

He's still fully convinced he's gonna make it rich and go back to his family in a few years. He still believes wholeheartedly that even if shit sucks right now, eventually everything is gonna be okay. It has to be. But it's not gonna be okay. It's not gonna be okay for a long time. And some parts are just never gonna be okay.

Seeing a happy and oblivious teenage Stan feels like watching a baby lamb walk into a slaughter house.

The next 10-something years are going to tear him apart limb from limb. In 40 years he's going to wake up on a boat during a bout of amnesia thinking he's in Columbian prison, or he's locked in the trunk of a car and about to drown, or his shoulder is on fire and his brother is gone, or it's the end of the world and everyone he ever dared to give a shit about is about to die in front of him and it's all his fault because he was too weak to stop it.

At some point, a young Stanley is going to get into his first true life or death fight. He doesn't even have to be involved with crime yet for it to happen. He's probably bruised and bleeding, with not nearly enough money to afford a doctor. He's sitting in the driver's seat of his El Diablo having a complete and utter break down because he almost died and suddenly everything is real.

Nothing is okay, absolutely nothing is going to be okay and whatever is left of his teenage innocence, naivety, and warmth dies in that car and it never comes back.

The next 10+ years are going to fundamentally change Stanley as a person and he's never going to be the same ever again. But teenage Stan doesn't know that, he's still a kid trying to sleep in the back of his car, ignoring hunger pangs and finding comfort in the half baked business ideas his mind cooks up because he doesn't understand how utterly done for he is.

12 year old Stanley I believe is so appealing because of his bright rambunctious spirit. He's still just a kid playing on the beach with his brother, but so was teenage Stan. I just wish the wholesomeness that comes with that and the subsequent hurt that follows as that spirit is broken over and over again by the world was explored more.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

[long-live-astronerd-ghost-king]

DPXDC prompt. Adult!Danny x Sleep-deprived!Constantine: We seem to have a misunderstanding.

Warlock was willing to admit that the Phantom’s company was mostly useful and not unpleasant. Because of the specifics of his work they had to meet quite often. It was nice to be at least a little sure that you wouldn’t get stabbed in the back. The new ghost king seemed to be amused by the World of the Living and that was quite useful. In addition, the Infinite Realms had a history of endless conflicts with Hell, so when demons was messing with him, Phantom was happy to put sticks in their wheels.

However, the current enemy of the League was another alien. Both John and Phantom happened to be nearby. But it seems ghost had no reason to help Hellblazer now, as this fight had nothing to do with his kingdom. Given that Batman had explicitly instructed John to stay on the battlefield, it seemed that if John Constantine wanted to count on a weekend, he would have to use his trump card now.

Constantine: In view of the urgency of the situation, I would like to make a proposal. Life offers many challenges. I know I can meet them if you're willing to face them with me. In the spirit of saving time..[holding up a ring] This is for you. You in?

Phantom: I..I don’t know, John. I mean i want to say yes but It’s all so sudden. Please gimme some time to think, okay? And let me help to deal with these invaders first and then we’ll talk about it.

John: ..Sure?

~~~~~

Tucker: Whoa crazy battle dude. John: Civilians are not allowed here. Danny: It's all right. We were going to meet at a cafe, but now, well, there is no cafe. I mean, he's with me and not so civilian, okay?Ehem..John, meet my best friend Tucker. Tucker, meet my..Em, this is John, and he's kinda my John. It's new for us.

Damn. He was in a hurry and offered more than he should have. It turns out the ghost had an interest in protecting the city. It is unlikely that he would allow the destruction of the place where one of his humans lives.

And worst of all, Phantom did not accept the ring (for which John had to hunt for several months) as payment. Constantine got it specially in case he needed a favor or a way to calm the anger of the spirit he was starting to get along with. Like, really, John spent a fair amount to own the artifact which would have neutralized the consequences of wearing a ring of rage. But Ghost didn’t want it? Why? And yet he helped. So John was in debt.

And how it's all at a bad time. The peace treaty and the treaty of cooperation between the States and the Infinite Realms was concluded only recently. Of course John didn't even have time to discuss the terms of their deal because the blushing ghost flew away to fight but to say that he won't pay for the service is like admitting that you want to start a new conflict. Constantine was starting to have a headache. He'll think about it when he gets at least a couple of hours of sleep. Whatever payment the ghost needs, it can wait a couple of hours.

~~~~~

But as it turned out, the ghost couldn’t make up his mind and decide what he wanted from him. He started showing up at John’s place and looking at him thoughtfully, also recently dragged him to pick out a suit. How he could be mistaken for a stylist John did not understand but preferred not to unnerve a potential ally.

Moreover, for some reason the chaotic creature decided that he had the right to condemn John for always forgetting to have dinner or take a bath. This scoundrel dared to lock him in a bathroom with strange scented candles and colored water. Whatever these bath bombs were, dumb spirit failed to poison him but now John smelled like peaches. Disgusting.

After breaking down the door he found the same mess with candles on the kitchen table. Phantom fought a fierce battle with the green goo in the pot that he brought to John's house, but eventually gave up and they ordered delivery. All in all, it was a pleasant evening. Of course John didn't admit it but for some reason Danny decided that he could make such a mess every Friday.

~~~~~

Danny: So..me and Morningstar are friends now. Do you mind? I know you don’t get along very well. John: Why should I care? Your friends are your business. Considering you’re crazy about the stars I’m surprised you’re not sleeping with their maker.

Danny: Hell no, Lightbringer is great. And I’m glad he’s sharing with me what I wouldn’t find in books but I would never cheat on my partner. John: Good to know. (Wow, who knew the Phantom has a lover.)

~~~~~

Morningstar: I have no idea what you see in this arrogant man, stardust.

Phantom: I don’t know. It’s interesting to be around him. You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow. And his determination and sarcastic nature are really charming.

Morningstar: Well, I’ll get rid of some of his contracts for your wedding but only because I like you and not because I’m willing to deal with this liar.

Phantom: Thanks, Luci,  you’re the best.

Morningstar:That’s true. But it's not free. I need you as a babysitter to keep Spawn busy while, well, Detective and I are busy.

Phantom: No problem :)

[vaguely-concerned]

huh. you know something I just consciously put together for the first time about caterina and lucanis' relationship is that through the game we get to hear them talk about each other a lot, but we get very few chances to hear them speak with each other at any length at all. contrast it with other companions whose storylines have elements of 'believed lost/long time no see relative returns!' like bellara and davrin, where we get to see both of them have several pretty in-depth conversations with cyrian and eldrin. hell I think even rook talks with varric longer in the regret prison scene than we ever get to see lucanis and caterina interact directly.

(and when we do see them interact, it's mostly one-sided -- it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, caterina who is doing most of the talking and giving all the orders, as he ruefully observes is her wont after murder of crows. including jumpscaring him with 'you're first talon now btw' and the shocked pikachu face in five acts he goes through in response lmao. perhaps it's more accurate to say that she talks at him and he reacts, than that they talk to each other much.)

it has such an interesting effect too, because in deliberately denying us direct insight or experience and only having this mosaic of description from each of them to go on, as well as forcing us to pay attention to the negative space of what is carefully not said, it's evocative along the same principle that you never actually show the monster in a horror film. if you've read the wigmaker job you have a clearer image of the more uh. worrying elements at play here going in, but there is something fascinatingly insidious and naturalistic in the way it's 'hushed up' in the game itself. she has his complete loyalty both as a member of her house and, more importantly, that of an abused child to a parent figure. he readily admits several times that she's a difficult person to live with, an even more difficult person to be loved by ("even for me. and I was her favourite")... but never once does he actively blame her nor truly conceptualize that he has every right to do so (that he can be angry with her and still love her, because whether he should or not he unavoidably does), or that she might have acted differently than she did, that she made a choice every time to hurt him. even affectionately he speaks of her as a force of nature, an act of god -- something that can't be reasoned or pleaded with or resisted, something you can only hope to navigate with as little pain as possible and pray to survive. let yourself get carried away by the riptide, resisting it will only make it worse. you don't compromise with a hurricane, you just try to find the best shelter you can and cross your fingers while you wait for it to pass and be calm again.

love is that hurricane. you do whatever she asks. you earn her continued affection day by day by never letting her down. you only want the things she tells you it's okay to want and cut everything else away preemptively. ("A wyvern tooth dagger?? I loved wyverns as a boy --Caterina would never let me have one of these, though." and as we have all wept and gnashed our teeth over, it never even OCCURS to him that he's a like thirty-five year old adult man who can buy himself any dagger he wants at any time. she said he couldn't have one. so he'll never have one. that's just how it works. and maybe if Illario could just accept that and find his peace with it like I have, this whole thing wouldn't be so difficult. oh lucanis.)

such is the price -- and the cost -- of being loved by her, it's a loan on which the interest will never stop piling up. you have to keep paying it down in perfection every day if you want to keep it. who got the worse deal there: the grandson who has abandoned everything else in life to live up to that and mostly succeeded, until the day he's so burned out and broken it threatens to no longer be an option, or the grandson who can never seem to scrape together enough worth in her eyes no matter how he begs, borrows or steals it, how he hustles and plays dirty?

one of the worst things that can happen to anyone is to be loved by a selfish god. another one of the worst things that can ever happen to anyone is to not be loved by a selfish god. (hope that helps, boys!) even in betraying everything else, Illario can't bring himself to hurt his grandmother, because that would defeat the whole point. who would he defiantly be proving himself worthy to, without her. in love, devotion, submission, hatred, frustration, bitterness, everything is defined in relation to her, you can spot the gravitational force of it through how the dellamorte family move through time and space. she -- her love and regard and attention -- is still the sun both of their worlds orbit around, even as adults. the game might never tell you outright 'she used to beat and starve them growing up. for their own good you see, so they'd be strong (and broken down enough for her to build them up again however she wanted but I'm sure that's incidental)', but if you know even a little bit about how these dynamics can work the writing is on the wall everywhere you look and all the more unsettling for it.

follow lucanis' freeze-logic and fraught interpersonal catch 22 irreconcilable mixed emotions problems back far enough, looong before the ossuary entered the picture, and you start to see caterina's ghost around every fucking corner. she is so proud of him. (well, she would be. she made him. she forged exactly the knife she needed and it rests willingly, devotedly, in her hands, it would return to her every time because it doesn't know love as anything but to be a knife. his tama never taught him how to be anything else. his biggest fear with her is that she won't even want him back, the way he is now.) to the best ability of her soul, whatever parts of it survived a lifetime of crow politics and 'five children, eight grandchildren, only Illario and me left now', I think she really does loves him. he certainly loves her, with all the sincerity and artless desperation of a child, of the little boy he was once. and what she's done to him (and to illario, for all his shitty gremlin scar-ass antics lol) is awful. the harm is real, and the love is real, and trying to find a way for these two truths to exist in the same space is driving all three of them their own individualized forms of insane. you know. the way only family can and so often does lol.

through implications and short glimpses and having to put the pieces together yourself, you can have the feeling that there is very genuine mutual love and attachment in this relationship... and that beneath that there is something so profoundly wrong. and the sneaking '...oh shit it gets worse the longer I think about it' horror of that is more effective for me at least than the stark in-your-face presentation of the facts of the matter could have been. the love is here. the love is here. it only ever makes it worse.

[ittybittyfanblog]

Error 404: (Self-Aware!AU, Sylus Edition) – Pt. 3

Summary: A LADS self-aware!AU featuring Sylus and a (now skeptical!) player. That’s it, that’s the plot. A/N: I’ve already outlined the entire thing–now it’s just a matter of writing it, so don’t worry! Even if some chapters take me longer to update, I’m gonna finish this one way or another. Promise. *fingers crossed* Tags: player!reader x sylus, fem!reader x sylus, reader x lads, self-aware!au, strong language, reader thinks she’s losing her marbles because of a certain someone

Pt. 1 - Pt. 2 - Pt. 3 - Pt. 4 - Pt. 5 - Pt. 6 - Pt. 7 - Pt. 8 - Pt. 9

“Alright—okay, don’t be stupid,” You chant to yourself as you pace restlessly from the kitchen area of your studio, to the coffee table where you’ve set your phone lying facedown. “Just open the damn thing.” 

You’ve just arrived back at the condo a little past seven PM after a, frankly, productive–if not slightly distracted–day of running errands. You’re home, and you haven’t even got to unpacking the two paper bags (and a box) worth of groceries that were all but thrown carelessly on the kitchen counter, and already, you’re back to stressing over all the weird shit that's been happening to you.

Throughout the afternoon, you tried your hardest to resist the urge to check your phone, especially whenever you see the screen light up–whether it was in your hand or stashed away in your half-zipped fanny pack.

It’s at the most random times too, but always when you act on your unfortunate tendency to monologue your thoughts out loud. 

Sure, it could just be some random push app notifications. Text messages from the few people that hit you up on the weekends–invitations to hang out, maybe. A few newsletters you forgot to unsubscribe from, if you’re unlucky. 

But you think the timing’s far too deliberate to be purely coincidental. 

“Do I get a dozen eggs or just half? What do I even need a dozen for?” (Phone vibrates)

“Oh, hey, Indomie’s on sale if you buy in bulk. How much for a box?” (Screen flashes. Twice.)

“Who the hell is holding up the line, damn–oh, it’s an old lady. Better hurry the fuck up, grandma.” (Screen flashes) “...Sorry! I didn’t mean that.” 

“Ughhh… my tummy hurty…” (Phone vibrates) “What—” 

“Everything’s perfectly normal. Just your average, sunny Saturday! You are an independent, capable adult… who’s fucking losing it.” (Screen flashes–after a minute interval) 

Of course, you have an inkling as to what’s–or who’s–blowing your phone up; in fact, he’s never left your mind since this morning.

So presently, you’re in the middle of having a small existential crisis over what that means, for you and your sanity. No big deal. 

You puff out your cheeks for a couple of seconds before letting out a deep breath. Don’t be a pussy. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation to all of this. You’re–you’re not crazy. 

Landing heavily down in front of the low table, you finally grab your phone, hand shaking with the teensiest amount of trepidation. Not giving yourself any more time to think and second-guess, you flip it over, switching it back to Ring mode as you swipe up to see—

—a barrage of notifications; one popping up after another. 

Some of them are what you’ve expected: plain, old push notifications from banking apps, others from varying socials. There’s one from your mom. A reminder to email her the flight tickets you still haven’t gotten around to booking yet. 

And. Six banner notifications from the game. From… from–him. It’s something you’ve already braced yourself for. It doesn’t prepare you, however, for what they actually said. 

A knot grows in your chest, spreading rapidly like slithering twine as your mind tries, and somewhat fails, to make sense of what your eyes are seeing. 

Grab a dozen, sweetie. It won’t add much to the total cost, and you need that protein every morning. Cereal’s not gonna cut it. 

You really ought to lessen your sodium intake, kitten. (and) Do NOT get the box. Stop. 

Haha. A feisty one, aren’t you? 

Mmm, poor baby.

I– we can talk about this later when you get home.

Each notification contains a completely unique dialogue you’ve never seen before. A play-by-play commentary specifically in response to you— to your personal remarks from earlier, spoken out loud— that there is absolutely no way anyone could still pass this off as simply being system-generated. 

A faint ringing echoes in your ears as you slowly draw back, putting some distance between the onslaught of text and… you. You can’t seem to tear your gaze away from the screen, though. Even if the back of your head bumps against the seat edge of the sofa behind you from how far you’ve already leaned back. 

Blinking in stunned silence, the only thing you could croak out is a strained “what the fuuuck.” 

... Ping!

Still mustering the courage to face me? Don’t keep me in suspense, darling. 

The sudden message jolts you back to reality. You suck in a deep breath.

… Despite everything, you can’t help but find his nonchalant response to your gradual spiral into hysterics–because he knows–a little amusing. Also rude. But mostly funny. 

(It’s also probably just your brain’s last-ditch effort to find some semblance of control, but whatever.)

At this point, you know that you’re merely delaying the inevitable. Swallowing, you press on one of Sylus’ messages and it immediately boots up the game. 

Instead of soothing your nerves like it usually does, the orchestral background music from the loading screen puts you more on edge; your anxiety builds up to a crescendo, harmonious to the heralding of what you know will undoubtedly change the trajectory of your life. 

Dramatic, but true. 

48%... 82%... 98%...

There’s a hollow drop in your stomach when the screen–finally–reveals the familiar sight of the café. The golden ambient light enters your field of vision for a split second before your eyes flit reflexively to the man standing in the middle of the screen, whose presence commandeered your full attention.

He’s wearing his motorcycle jacket–the black one with the red and white thorn(?) accents, paired along the pair of leather pants with the iconic double zipper. Aside from the black zircon studs, he’s not wearing anything out of the ordinary. Nothing is looking out of the ordinary, actually. 

Holding your breath, you wait for the other shoe to drop. 

“Are you waiting for me to say hello? Then–” Sylus muses with an amused lilt to his voice, sauntering closer to flick “your” forehead. There’s a beat before he continues: “That’s my way of saying hello.” 

… Huh? 

That’s—this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. You… you don’t know what you were expecting, but this wasn’t it.

The man in front of you doesn’t look any different from how he usually does; the way that his… character animation (Should you call it that? It doesn’t seem right, given the circumstance, but you don’t know how best to describe anything anymore) flows is so–-so infuriatingly… normal. As if it’s just like any other day that you’ve logged in the game. 

Where did the sentience go? Why is he reciting lines he’s programmed to say? None of it adds up.

Your mouth tries to form words, but nothing comes out. With wide eyes, you helplessly gape at him. Speechless. For a moment, you feel like you’ve actually gone mad. 

A small “what’s happening?” slips past your lips. Your eyes dart across his face, trying to analyze every microexpression, any hint of sentience on him–in his eyes, in his movements. 

You find none. 

Mechanically, you exit the game.

“What the actual fuck?” You whisper-shout at nothing in particular, and maybe to the biggest cause of your current disconcertion; one who you thought… Who you were sure was—

-

-

Fuck it. It’s time to put your detective skills to work.